Smuggler-Proof Toilets Come To Canadian Prisons

Canadian federal prison guards will no longer have to draw straws to see who gets to do the most hated job in prison, search feces for contraband. Their savior is a specially designed toilet called the Drugloo. According to the company website, "feces are washed into an attached recovery container by automatic sprays. There water and anti-microbial fluids are used to separate and wash any drug packages. The package then goes into a sealed chute and from there is dropped directly into an evidence container, without anyone having touched the item."

Comments

Questions

[smooth wombat]

Does this mean that every cell will have one of these installed in it, or is it used when officers think someone might be carrying contraband? i.e. they are taken to a special location.

If a person is carrying contraband, can they reach down and grab the package without the officers seeing them do so before the device activates?

Re:Questions

[budgenator]

I only see these being installed in select locations. Usually a Female Visitor will smuggle the contraband into the visiting room in their vagina, which is removed in the bathroom. After the bathroom visit the contra-band which is most often currency, is slipped to the inmate who will swallow it while eating some chips or whatever from the vending machines. The inmate then retrieves it the next day, this is where the evidence securing toilet will be used. Currency is highly prized inside because most drugs are smuggled in by the guards and other employees and they aren't interested in stamps or cigarettes for payment.

Re:Questions

[Apotekaren]

The vagina is removed in the bathroom? Oy vey!

Re:Questions

[Ellis D. Tripp]

So why would the guards be interested in reducing the availability of the currency needed to pay for the drugs that they are selling?

Seems like killing their own market, no?

Re:Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

So why would the guards be interested in reducing the availability of the currency needed to pay for the drugs that they are selling?

Seems like killing their own market, no?

First, not all guards deal drugs. Second, the guards are just employees. They aren't the ones who make institutional decisions, they're just the ones enforcing them.

URL/Link?

[antdude]

Where is it? :P

So...

[NI4NI]

now it'll just be the guards smuggling dope in?

what stops them from shitting elsewhere first?

[electrogeist]

Or put their hand in between? Something tells me those prisoners wouldn't have much of a problem with that...

Re:what stops them from shitting elsewhere first?

[Demonantis]

The guard will probably be able to tell I suspect since it is being done in his or her presence. TFA says its used on suspected carriers and that hash and pot are the biggest issue. I didn't understand the whole currency thing because it just adds an extra step in a process that doesn't need it. I mean smuggling the drugs would be just as hard as smuggling money.

Just what we need...

[Lendrick]

Evidence containers full of corn. :p

why bother?

[pydev]

Just let them have their drugs; they'll be quieter, better behaved, and easier to handle. The same works on the outside, by the way.

Re:why bother?

[JWSmythe]

That really depends on the drug. Cocaine, Crystal Meth, other various amphetamines, PCP, or LSD, definitely won't help calm the population. If they're smuggling in Xanax, Valium, and pot, that would be a completely different story.

    Contraband can include cell phones, shanks (improvised knives), guns, ammunition, etc. You'd be amazed what people try to get into a jail.

    When I was in law enforcement school, one of my classmates was working at a state prison. He brought a carton of cigarettes in to an inmate. That day, instead of going home, they took him to intake, and put him in the orange jumpsuit. I don't quite know all the details, because he should have been taken to a county jail first for intake. It think it was just for the extra embarrassment value, so no other CO's would think it was a bright idea to bring in contraband.

Re:why bother?

[sleeper0]

So you're saying people swallow guns, knives and cell phones?

Re:why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says they don't just "let it be" already?

The futilitiy of a "War on Drugs" obvious to everyone and their dog. The current procedure is a weird balance between selective enforcement (a good legal justification for racism or homeless-bashing is to find drugs), high publicity "make an example of" events, and then most of the time just ignoring illegal drug use, perhaps sometimes even encouraging it. Why such a convoluted self contradictory system? Good question, if you know the answer, do tell.

My best guess is it is a result of circumstance and compromises: It seems to appease the few idiots who actually believe a war on drugs is practical (or at least give them something to keep busy with). It also allows for systematic discrimination which can be useful in maintaining a class based economic system. It allows, encourages and even makes more fun the recreational use of drugs by those who can afford it. It also helps spurn technological development, just like War does - we get all sorts of new technologies like surveillance toilets - and all sorts of new higher concentration drugs that are easier to smuggle like often dangerous heroin from usually benign opium flowers.

Re:why bother?

[JWSmythe]

    Ummmm.. More of store them in places that should be exit-only. You'd be amazed what someone will shove up their butt for the right price.

    Narcotics can be swallowed in a condom or balloon, but they run the risk of it rupturing in their stomach and ingesting a lethal dose. In the butt can still be lethal, but there's an awful lot less for it to get eaten away by. And, swallowing drugs, you have to wait for it to pass. A direct insertion, it comes out on the first movement.

    Some people have a bit more liberty with sizes there than normal people. For someone like me, you could try to shove a lump of coal up, but all you'd get back is a diamond. :)

Re:why bother?

[JWSmythe]

And sadly enough, I found pictures to prove it. One lady inserted a revolver, but it got stuck and had to be surgically removed. It appears to be a .38, but I could be wrong. She should have gone with something like a Kel Tec P-3AT. If someone was bringing me one, I'd prefer a good old Colt 1911 with a couple extra loaded magazines, but I'm pretty sure that would be uncomfortable. :)

Re:why bother?

[MBGMorden]

Actually I'd think that smuggling in any handgun would be less painful if done in small parts batches.

The slide first, then the frame with all of the grip removed below the mag release, then the mag, then small parts. Sure 4 trips is a lot, but it sure beats pulling a 1911 out of your ass (I can honestly say that such an instance is one of the few times I'd rather the standard GI grip safety over a beavertail version :)).

Re:why bother?

[JWSmythe]

    I'm pretty sure no matter how you put it in there, the frame would still be .... well .... less than comfortable. :)

    A friend of mine had a book that showed all kinds of weird xrays. They were all real, of various objects put where they didn't belong. One was the infamous quick dry cement and pingpong ball. I'd guess the cement wasn't too bad, and for this guy the ping pong ball wouldn't have been rough, but once the cement hardened to form a full cast of his colon, it couldn't have been very comfortable. The article indicated it was removed as one piece. ouch.

    I guess once you've passed a cement cast of your colon, there isn't much you couldn't hide up there.